


Say Everything they Never Understand

by orphan_account



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Non-Graphic Violence, Recovery, Revenge, Team Feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-13
Updated: 2013-09-16
Packaged: 2017-12-14 21:28:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 2,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/841582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony is definitely a target for... Well... Everyone.</p><p>The Avengers, upon discovering this with his first kidnapping since they moved into the tower, are less than pleased. So they make a statement for the villains of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_"So you'd rather have my three year old Jericho than Hammer's new stuff? Funny that. See, there's a slight problem. A hitch in the works, as it were."_

_"And what might that be?"_

_"I refuse to make any weapons for you."_

_"Why not make this easy on yourself?"_

_Tony stared at him and began to recite a poem he had heard long ago. "A march in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown / A route through a heavy wood with muffled steps in the darkness,..."_

_"Well then, Mister Stark. I suppose we can persuade you."_

_Red, and black. Red, and black._

_"At my feet more distinctly a soldier, a mere lad, in danger of bleeding to death, (he is shot in the abdomen,)..."_

 

*A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown, Walt Whitman


	2. Chapter 2

Natasha didn't show emotion. Ever. She would not show it now.

She didn't. But the knife she never let go of might have given her away anyway, at least to those who knew her. To the team, to Fury. Natasha hid emotion behind a mask of cool disdain and snark. But everyone, even her, had tells.

She'd lost him. Guilt was not a new emotion; but guilt mixed with unbearable rage and worry, that was something she hadn't felt for anyone except Coulson or Clint in a long, long time. Ever, actually. She hadn't realized just how much she enjoyed toying with the genius until he was gone, especially on her watch. Hadn't realized that he was the one who initialized all the banter, filled the silence on the coms to ground them, to remind all of them that they were still alive.

"We'll get him back." Steve said.

"Of course. Or he'll show up sometime in the next week, moaning about how we should have been faster." she said, blank face. Clint snickered, a little.

Natasha's problem was bigger than they realized though. She may, accidentally, have indulged in childish behavior and fallen in love with the man under the masks. She hadn't even realized it until now, but looking back, she wasn't surprised to realize that she hadn't really been hiding behind masks around him. The more he let fall, the more she let fall. It had started quickly.

She'd murder him for that, even without this little stunt.

(If this were the last birthday you had, how would you celebrate? I'd do whatever I wanted to do, with whoever I wanted to do it with.)

That bastard, she was going to kill him for actually making her worry. She'd hang him from a gibbet for the sport of his own...bots. Holy crap, Stark was turning her into a LotR fan. This had to stop.

She'd tried that though.

It hadn't worked.


	3. Chapter 3

_"Can't you get him to shut up?"_

_"Not if you want him to be able to tell us anything." the man between them screamed, choking on the words slipping past his lips. "He is surprisingly resilient. Not only will he not build for us, which is in his own interest, he won't give up secrets on that team of heroes. I don't see why not."_

_"I collect them now, it seems..../ Odd how little/ they require of/ me...."_

_The other torturer nodded. "Not like anyone could care for a screw up like him anyway." He grabbed a poker._

_"Some say the world will end in fire, / Some say in ice. / From what I’ve tasted of desire / I hold with those who favor fire..." the prisoner started, sing-song._

_"Oh, shut up." said the first torturer, letting the brand fall._

 

*Peace Lilies, Cathy Smith Bowers  
*Fire and Ice, Robert Frost


	4. Chapter 4

Bruce dashed frantically from screen to screen, unnerved by the silence and trying not to show it. He hadn't realized how steadying the engineer's presence had been here, working. Everyone else walked on eggshells, like he was a pissy toddler. Tony poked and prodded and rambled and grounded him.

Natasha was in here, twitchy, watching absolutely everyone who came in that did not belong to their team, twirling a knife in her hands. Most left fairly quickly. Thankfully.

"I need to be... I need Tony's tools, Jarvis." Bruce muttered, annoyed. "This would go so much faster if SHIELD would just let. me. out." he could almost feel the panic rising, they hadn't let him leave, it was just another cage, red and white and IVs and lab coats and -

"Hm." Natasha said, lightly. "You catch that, Clint?"

Shifting in the vents above. "Yeah, I caught it, alright. I'll see what I can do." there was a smirk in that voice. "The lot of us will do more good back at the tower anyway."

Bruce took a deep breath, forcing down the rising panic, whispering to the green in the back of his head. We're okay for now, we've got Nat and Clint, we're good. "I..."

The lightbulb went off.

"Oh my God."

"Did Banner just swear?" Clint asked.

"Yes." Natasha replied.

Bruce flicked his hands around in a gesture most would dismiss as a nervous tick. Natasha's eyes narrowed. He knew she'd be able to tell. I think I can track him, he signed.

How. She'd answered, Clint poking his head out to see.

The reactor. He made a new element for it. One-of-a-kind. But I need...

Jarvis and the toys. She finished.

"On it." Clint vanished, up and away.


	5. Chapter 5

_He was freezing. Cold cement floors weren't the greatest surface to lie on. The sweat covering his skin had cooled rapidly, leaving him shivering. Red streaks on his skin burned, but were beginning to chill, which would make things worse._

_Why didn't he give in again? Was there even a reason at all? He couldn't really focus enough to remember anymore, until words rose unbidden to his lips._

_"Deep in a vale, a stranger now to arms, / Too poor to shine in courts, too proud to beg,..." he whispered._

_They were coming for him, they had to be, and even if they weren't, it wasn't like he didn't deserve it._

_"Remembering still the toil of former days, / To other hands he sees his earnings paid;-- / They share the due reward—he feeds on praise. / Lost in the abyss of want, misfortune’s shade,...."_

*The American Soldier By Philip Freneau


	6. Chapter 6

Clint meandered through the vents. Thinking. Planning. Plotting.

Bruce needed the tower, and he was on the edge of panic at being unable to leave. Clint was getting close, too, and judging by the way Natasha had latched onto any available weaponry, she was equally edgy. He didn't ...

Clint grinned when he spotted blonde hair beating at a bag. "Hey, Cap." he said, dropping from his hiding place.

"Clint. How are they doing?"

Clint tapped his ear, and his lips. Cap caught on.

"Not so well, then?"

"Not so much." Steve started beating the bag again. Clint moved close and murmured so softly only someone with superhearing could pick it up, angling away from any cameras in the room.

"Bruce thinks he can track the reactor, but he needs Jarvis and Tony's equipment to do it. SHIELD won't let him out. If we don't get him out soon, he'll go ballistic. Bruce has a long history with cages. It's never gone well for him."

Steve quirked an eyebrow. "Hm." his punches slowly came to a halt.

Clint beamed. That was the look of a man with a plan. Good. He needed Tony back to snark with and tease and listen to. He needed that little black Amex card no one ever acknowledged but everyone knew was there to buy them toys, and the fake narcissism hiding the largest well of self-loathing Clint had ever seen. He needed rambling in his ear to remind him that he wasn't alone anymore, that someone could catch him if he jumped of the roof of this building.

When Steve nodded and left, Clint climbed back into the vents, making his way to rest above the lab again, watching that knife flash. Back and forth, up and down, glimmer, shimmer...


	7. Chapter 7

_...gleam twist cut red. He snickered. Clint would have appreciated his descriptiveness, and the irony. They were going to try and break the Iron Man with hot iron, cold iron, an iron knife. Seriously, where is the originality? He felt detatched. It was interesting._

_Out of body. Huh, he doubted that was a good thing. Maybe he could finally die and escape this pit. Not like anyone would miss him. They'd probably miss his tech, though. Bruce might miss his devil-may-care attitude and protection from the military. Maybe Steve would miss his connection to the past, a little, in a far-off way. He hoped Natasha would miss having him around, a job she'd never quite finished. He thought he might be falling in love with her, but he wouldn't go there so soon, not after Pepper leaving him, even if it was for the best._

_(Love is for children.)(I'd do whatever I wanted to do, with whoever I wanted to do it with)_

_He opened his mouth. Can't say anything important, can't stay silent. So poetry it was. And as long as he was thinking of Natasha... "The mask that burns like a violin, the mask / that sings only dead languages, that loves / the destruction of being put on..."_

_Flip, flash, cut, red. Red lines and gold sparks at the edges of his vision, like fireflies. Irony._

*Carnival by Rebecca Lindenberg


	8. Chapter 8

Steve's plan was foolproof. He needed Tony back to ground him and explain the crazy new world he was in, after all.

Coulson's office was on the next floor up, buried in paperwork. Steve explained that Bruce was going to lose control because he was sick of using unfamiliar equipment and that Natasha was goinng to kill someone and Clint might give anyone a heart attack right now, even Fury.

Coulson could read between the lines. They needed to get back to the Tower. He looked from his pile of paperwork, comforting, reliable paperwork, and back to Steve, and sighed. He kind of wished Tony were here to distract the other man, snark with Clint, calm down Bruce, and make Natasha relax.

He froze. Damn, he hadn't realized just how much Tony did for the team beyond the tech until he was gone.

"I'll handle it." he said.

Twenty minutes later, he was jumping on a Quinjet with the other Avengers. Sure enough, Bruce's eyes were green with almost-panic, and Natasha was flipping a knife idly, and Clint was pranking and scaring people like never before.

Coulson hoped they got Stark back alive. The Avengers would throw in the towel and tell the world to screw itself if they didn't. It had already been three days with no contact; their chances were getting slimmer.


	9. Chapter 9

_And then there was Clint, so surprised by Tony trusting him. Used to darkness, used to hate and fear and silence, as lost as any child with no childhood. Trust was a fluid concept for Tony, and no one had ever crashed a plane helping him fight aliens before, or drunk themselves into a coma after a breakup with him while watching Disney movies (more like dismal movies, the archer had mumbled).  
_

_The door banged open. (Say everything and nothing son, or nothing at all, whichever works better for you).  
_

_"I find no peace, and all my war is done. / I fear and hope. I burn and freeze like ice. / I fly above the wind, yet can I not arise; / ..."_

*I Find No Peace, Thomas Wyatt


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for disappearing on everyone! I've been dealing with a few problems, as well as starting my first semester of college and moving out of my house into a dorm, so it has been a while, but I realized I already had a couple of chapters of this written and decided you deserved a post. Here you go! Everyone thank keroseneSteve for prodding me.

"My friends." Thor greeted when they entered. "Jarvis told me you were upon us. Have we no word of our Shieldbrother?"  
"No, but I can find him." Bruce replied. "If it doesn't take too long."  
Thor nodded, and swung his hammer idly. He felt useless, here in a world he barely understood, which Tony had given him a home in, and a family in their team, and explanations of strange things.


	11. Chapter 11

_And of course Bruce, who could actually keep up with him, humor him. He was two in one, and Tony cared for both halves, the brothers he'd never had, the peer he'd never found, the co-author of the universe and it's vast knowledge as well as all the strength he'd ever found deep within during awful situations._

_"....Sailor, I would have killed a stranger/ to save the world./ Sailor, you would not./ We kissed goodbye on the cheek./ I hope not for the last time...."_

_And Steve, always upright and free, bound to be perfect by a legacy he didn't remember having, lost and alone in the wide world of all unknown and no one left living of the friends and enemies once fighting._

_"....Stormed at with shot and shell,/ While horse and hero fell./ They that had fought so well/ Came through the jaws of Death,/ Back from the mouth of hell,/ All that was left of them,/ Left of six hundred...."_

_Then there was Thor, just as lost as Steve but for different reasons, anchoring himself with his love for Jane, coming now to understand the heart of humans, even while holding onto the liveliness of his home._

_"....My liveliest self, I give you fair leave/ in these windblown weathers,/ heather-hearted and human and strange,/ to turn every blackberry corner...."_

_And Coulson. Ever so loyal, strong. The only SHIELD agent to ever wrangle Tony Stark, the only one to unknowingly crawl into his heart._

_"....We hail it as a pledge that brighter skies/ Shall bless the coming morn. Thus rolls the day,/ The short dark day of life; with tempests thus,/ And fleeting sun-shine chequer’d. At its close,/ When the dread hour draws near, that bursts all ties,...."_

 

*Poets at Lunch, Stanley Moss  
*Charge of the Light Brigade, Lord Alfred Tennyson  
*Song at Drumholm, John Unterecker  
*The Rain-bow, Thomas Love Peacock


	12. Chapter 12

"Got him!" Everyone leapt to their feet as Bruce emerged from the lab, eyes bloodshot with exhaustion. Tony had been missing for just over a week at this point, and even Hill had started to want the billionaire back. The Avengers were MIA, and SHIELD didn't like to have to rely on the XMen or the rogue heroes of the world. "He's in an AIM compound devoted to inventing earphones and collecting information in Central America."  
"Suit up," Steve ordered. "It's time we assemble."


	13. Chapter 13

"Oh God Tony-"

"Clint?" His voice cracked, dry and overused. "Din't say anything..."

"@#&$ Tony, I don't care, @#%$, we need to get you to medical -"

"Go 'way, I'm sleepin'," Tony mumbled. Clint fell silent as Tony's eyes slipped back closed. The genius was in terrible condition - he might have more experience with torture than Clint, at this point, maybe even more than Natasha. He really wanted to see what she did to the people running the compound later, but right now his job was to take the tapes of the torture and get Tony out while the others ran distraction. Lifting the billionaire carefully, Clint was extremely grateful for all the strength in his arms and back from the years of archery.

"Come on, Stark, don't give up on me."


	14. Chapter 14

Tony woke up.

He blinked a little bit, wondering why nothing hurt and why he was coherent and on what was, decidedly, The GOOD stuff**.

He blinked again.

"Oh Thank God-" Clint's voice was very close, soft and if Tony didn't know better, he'd say even a little choked.

"If you ever pull this stunt again, Stark -” Natasha cut herself off, biting back the uncharacteristic display of concern. Tony blinked again. 

“I’ve accidentally landed myself in an alternate universe, haven’t I? That’s a thing we have to worry about now. Of course it is.” Because they looked like he had kicked their puppy, what the hell, no one ever looked like that over him except Pep and Rhodey. And Obie, once upon a time. And everyone knew they were the outliers, alongside Jarvis. And seriously, Natasha sounded like she was going to cry and he could NOT handle that right now.

“Well, shit.” Clint remarked, taking the response in stride (he’d reacted like that too, at the beginning with SHIELD, when he had no idea what he was doing. “Now you’ve jinxed us, idiot.”

Tony laughed. “So,” he finally asked, “Who got me this time? And when can I get out of here? Hospitals give me hives, did anyone bring a tablet, I wanna talk to Jarvis, what’s with the faces? Clint, you’re purple.” And he would NEVER giggle like that if he wasn’t drugged to the gills.

“THIS TIME?!”

(**I may have borrowed the end of this line from someone, but I cannot for the life of me remember who. Isn’t it brilliant? THANKS whoever you are!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here guys - have a side of fluff with your angst. :) Tony is going to take some time to recover...  
> And the Avengers are NOT HAPPY about this situation.
> 
> Also, I'm out of prewritten chapters, so I thought I'd end on a slightly less cliff-hangery note because I'm not sure when I'll update again, but prolly sometime in the next month because the response to this fic is so fabulous. I love you guys!


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